


Now And Again, I Lose My Way

by jhoom



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Captain America: The First Avenger, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jhoom/pseuds/jhoom
Summary: Steve loses Bucky not once, but twice, and he hates himself each time.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Now And Again, I Lose My Way

**Author's Note:**

> working through my [Bad Things Happen](https://badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com/) bingo squares. here we've got: self-loathing, i should have been better, grief/mourning
> 
> no happy ending in this one, simply because it takes place at points in the MCU where there aren't any happy endings to go around :/ i will eventually try to get around to a happy post-endgame fix it story XD but we'll see how it goes
> 
> come bug me on tumblr [@jhoomwrites](http://jhoomwrites.tumblr.com) about stucky ~~or to poke at me about destiel~~

He can’t get drunk. 

That’s unfortunate, because all he wants to do is numb himself to take the edge off. There’s no point in trying to pretend it’ll make him feel _better_ in any tangible way, but it might help him feel nothing for a little bit. A little less hollow, a little less empty, just until morning. 

Steve wipes at the tears in his eyes threatening to spill. He’s sure if he starts he won’t stop, so he blinks them away until he can see again. 

Still a war to win, after all. And a friend to avenge. 

He clenches his fist until the bottle of shatters, wine spilling across the table and onto the floor. It takes him a moment to realize that his hand hurts, a different sort of hurt than the gnawing ache that’s settled in his chest. He looks at it, at the red of the wine blending with the red of his blood that gushes from a cut. 

“Shit,” he mutters. He’s not sure if he’s more upset that he hurt himself or that his body’s betrayed him by feeling a pain that isn’t Bucky. He tries to help clean up, but the worried woman in charge shoos him away. She’s been looking for an excuse for hours now, he thinks, and he babbles apologies as she shoves a dirty towel into his hand and bodily pushes him towards the door. 

Blind to where he’s going, he somehow ends up in his tent. 

It’s a mistake, and he knows it is the moment he’s there and sees Bucky’s bedroll, neatly rolled from when he woke up that morning. All of Bucky’s stuff is there, bequeathed to Steve so that he has this minor consolation in his misery. Hands shaking (though notably no longer bleeding, damn serum does its job well), he pulls open Bucky’s pack. 

There’s not much inside. A weathered picture of him and his ma and sister. A switch knife his dad gave him. A few letters from Steve from way back when, back when he was another person. A smaller, stupider one who’d thought the worst thing in the world would be if Bucky won the war without him. It’d never occurred to him that there was a much worse prospect waiting for him, because now he’ll have to win it without Bucky. 

A sob wells up from deep inside him, from the pit of his soul. He’s alone now, he doesn’t have to pretend to be Captain America. 

He collapses and buries his face in Bucky’s bedroll, clutching it tight and wishing beyond anything that it was Bucky in his arms instead. Even if it was just his broken body, that’d be something. That kills Steve more than anything, that Bucky’s going to rot out there in the Alps, forgotten and lost and the whole damn world will go on without knowing.

“I’m so sorry,” he whines. “I’m so sorry I didn’t grab you. I tried, I swear to god, I tried, Buck. I… I should’ve been better. I’m gonna take that to my grave, knowing for all the good this serum did me, it didn’t make me good enough to save you.” 

And then words fail him entirely. He’s exhausted, exhausted in a way he hasn’t felt since before he walked into Erskine’s lab. Probably never felt this low, actually. Not when he was sick as a dog and thought he was dying. Not when his ma died. 

As terrible as that had been, it hadn’t been his _fault_.

Bucky’s dead and it was _completely_ Steve’s fault. If he’d been faster, stronger, smarter, if he’d _protected his goddamn best friend better_ , then they’d be toasting their success right now instead of Steve wishing he could tear his fucking heart out. 

He vows that next time when someone he loves is on the line, he’ll be enough. He has to be, or what’s the fucking point?

~ ~ ~

It’s sickeningly familiar, the emptiness at the center of his being. A lifetime later, and it’s no better than the first time. He thought maybe with familiarity, it might hurt less. 

It doesn’t. Not one bit. 

Steve ignores it as best he can, that weight hanging over him threatening to crush his soul. 

He avoids it as they figure shit out. There’s work to be done, still, like there’d been Hydra to face and a war to win the last time. He’s good at compartmentalizing, good at putting the panic and self-hatred into a little box so he can focus and do some good by the people who are left standing. There’s hope, after all. They just need a plan, they can undo this— 

Whenever he tries to sleep, he sees it again. Relives Bucky turning to dust right before his eyes. He’s helpless, reaching and grasping nothing but air. He lost him _again_. He wasn’t good enough _again_. 

It isn’t until they’re back on Earth, trapped in the knowledge that they’re fucked they’re so fucked. All those people… 

Bucky… 

He learned, once upon a time, how to live without Bucky. He did it once, for all the good it did him. It wasn’t until Bucky was back that he’d realized, wow, he’d been only half alive that whole damn time. He’d been acutely aware of that half-state since then; if Bucky wasn’t there, if Bucky wasn’t himself, then Steve wasn’t all there, wasn’t all _himself_ , either. 

Bucky’d been getting better, though. There were moments… a spark of something in his eyes, a shared moment when Steve let himself _hope_ — 

Hope. Fuck hope. 

Steve locks himself in his old room at the compound. He’d abandoned it years ago for Bucky’s sake, makes sense for him to reclaim it now that Bucky’s gone.

All those old feelings, all that guilt and anger and pain, they’re back tenfold. The knife hasn’t dulled at all after seventy-odd years, the pain of losing Bucky as sharp now as it’d been the first time. 

He wonders if wherever Bucky is, he’s finally learned that Steve’s not worth shit. All these muscles, all the stamina and healing and whatever the fuck else they pumped into him with the serum, it’s all garbage. All it did was change the packaging, but Steve’s still as useless as he was when he was some punk kid in Brooklyn who couldn’t win a fight to save his life. 

_Oh no no,_ he corrects himself bitterly. _You save your own life just fine. Look at you, alive and well when half the universe is gone. Why are you left standing? What makes you so fucking special when people worth twice what you are are gone?_

 _How fucking useless are you, you can’t save your own best friend? Once, twice now he’s died on you when you were_ **_right there_** _? Never mind you failed him more than that. You let Hydra get their hands on him, ruin him. You weren’t there to help him recover. You’re fucking_ **_pathetic_** _, Rogers. Whatever Erskine thought he saw in you, he was_ **_wrong_**.

He rolls over and stares at the wall, letting the terrible words and thoughts wash over him, settle there, take root. He deserves to feel each and every one of them, to know the great depths of his failure. Hell, he deserves a lot worse, so he can at least embrace this much. 

There’s work to do, so much work to do, and he owes it to the people not still around to try and do it. He might not be the most capable, might be too broken to do much good, but he has to try, right? 

All he can do is lay there and hope that the universe likes him enough (hates him enough?) to give him a third chance. Because if he gets a third chance, well, he’s never letting Bucky go. 

Even if it kills him. 


End file.
